E-cigarettes & Heart Health

Take a look at TV shows from the past, and you can see how common it was for people to smoke. For years, no one knew just how harmful cigarettes were to our health and that they were loaded with a number of addictive ingredients. In addition, cigarettes were later found to cause lung cancer and lung diseases such as emphysema. Today, many people avoid cigarettes or are trying to quit smoking. Sometimes, they will look to alternatives to traditional cigarettes to ween themselves off of them or get the “nicotine buzz” they’d get from lighting up a cigarette.

Although we now know how harmful traditional cigarettes are, we’re still discovering the harmful effects of e-cigarettes, one alternative to paper cigarettes.

How Do E-cigarettes Affect Heart Health?

While not much research has been done on this topic yet, it’s important to understand how nicotine affects your heart and why quitting smoking – or never starting at all – is your best option.

What Is Nicotine?

Nicotine is a highly addictive substance that is found in tobacco. In traditional cigarettes, dried tobacco and other additives burn and turn into smoke, which is inhaled.

E-cigarettes also contain nicotine, but in a liquid form. The nicotine in e-cigarettes heats up and turns into vapor that gets inhaled. Makers claim that they are a better choice for smokers because they do not have the tobacco and other additives of traditional cigarettes. Nicotine is harmful to the body in many ways. It can: